Unlucky Evans loses time in Vuelta’s high mountain stage

A day-long break during stage 13 of the Vuelta a Espana earned David Moncoutie a well-deserved solo win in Sierra Nevada, whilst an unlucky puncture saw Cadel Evans lose over a minute and slide from second to fourth overall.

Evans could hardly have punctured at the worst moment. The Australian’s back wheel blew close to the summit of the Monachil climb, immediately preceding the ascent to Sierra Nevada and when barely half a dozen riders remained in race leader Alejandro Valverde’s group.

The Silence-Lotto rider had a wait of nearly a minute before his team car appeared and gave him a new bike, whilst ahead Valverde and the other top favourites still present decided to accelerate all out.

Finally the Australian lost 1-12 to Valverde, Robert Gesink (Rabobank) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas) who completed the climb together. A fourth key favourite, Xacobeo-Galicia’s Ezequiel Mosquera, broke away close to the summit from the trio to finish second behind Moncoutie, 52 seconds down, whilst Valverde picked up a time bonus for third.

Whilst Valverde has strengthened his lead, further down there have been numerous changes. Evans slid from second at just seven seconds behind Valverde to fourth at 1-23. Gesink gains a spot and moves up to second, whilst Basso jumps from fifth overall to third.

Garmin-Slipstream’s Tom Danielson lost considerable time on the day, after cracking on the Monachil climb he dropped from fourth to ninth, and is now nearly seven minutes down.

“I didn’t realise Evans had punctured,” Valverde said later, “I just saw that he’d disappeared from the group and thought it was a good opportunity to drop him.”

“I had to go for it. Assuming things continue as they stand overall, he’s my most dangerous rival overall in the final time trial in Toledo.”

Whilst Evans worked desperately alongside Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Samuel Sanchez to limit the gap, ahead three of his four main rivals – Valverde, Gesink, and Mosquera – were given help by team-mates from a fast-disintegrating early break of 26 riders.

Valverde had Caisse D’Epargne team-mate Joaquim Rodriguez to help keep the pace high whilst Gesink could rely on Rabobank’s Koos Moerenhout and Mont Ventoux winner Juanma Garate, albeit for much less time. Even Mosquera’s Xacobeo-Galicia squad had David Garcia Dapena doing what he could.

Basso, Mosquera, Gesink and Valverde continued to drive once they had shed all their team-mates and their working alliance only collapsed on the windswept final two kilometres when Mosquera went clear.

Evans limited the damage, and is still only at 1-23 on Valverde. But if the Silence-Lotto pro was relying on the final time trial to pounce on the leader’s jersey, it now looks like a very risky policy.

Moncoutie, meanwhile, now has the King of the Mountains classsificaiton sewn up following his gutsy daylong break and the second Vuelta win of his career.

In fact the Frenchman was so pleased with winning on one of Spain’s toughest climbs that he says he’s now going to put off his decision on whether he retires this year until the end of the Vuelta.